Em is 27. She’s a serial dater. She goes immediately from one boyfriend to the next. She has a successful and fulfilling career. But she can’t handle not having attention 24/7. I don’t know if she realizes this. She knows “single Em” is clingy and desperate to share her time with whoever is willing. If I don’t set up boundaries while she is single she will basically be living with me, and i’d be getting dinner and drunk with her every night of the week. She just broke up with a boy.. and this is the first time she hasn’t had someone lined up and ready to dive in head first. She is the kind of dater that goes from zero to 90 in .25 seconds. She doesn’t know how to do the casual dating.

There’s something deeper going on here. Why is it so hard for her to be alone? Why does her sanity require so much attention? She asks me all the time – why do i feel this way? The truth is I have no idea. But i do know that until she is without someone for a while she will never figure out the deeper issue. She’s a great person. Smart, nerdy, and yet cool. She’s gorgeous. In my opinion she is the total package with a doctorate to boot. A catch! But she can’t get a handle on loving her own company. The attention she requires with never satisfy her. Getting the attention she wants will only make the need greater… and make the moments where she doesn’t have it more excruciating.

My heart breaks for her and the moments that I know she has when she sits alone at her apartment ready to jump out of her own skin because she neeeeeeds someone to shower themselves on her. I wish I could wave a magic wand and give her peace.

I have had my moments like this, but they are always passing. If I sit still long enough it’ll pass. Or even something simple like a trip to the grocery store or a phone call to a friend or family member satisfies my need. I can’t imagine it staying too long. Because it is a hard emotion to have. Does she hate herself? Fear herself? Is it the age of 27 that makes a woman go a little bit batty with her internal clock ticking away the number of kids possible at this point? I don’t know. I just hope that Em will be single long enough to make peace with herself and with the quiet. She won’t. But that is my hope…

So, I’ve recently discovered that I have a lot of self doubt. I didn’t realize this was something I was battling till the last 24 hours. My first step in conquering that will be to stop with the self doubting out loud. No more negative comments about me out loud. I’ll keep them to myself. I want to own me. own up to me. and just let me be me. more and more and more. I owe this to the people that I’m around on a regular basis. Who wants to be around that person that tears themselves down verbally constantly? That is annoying. I do that. I’m that annoying person. Welp, lets fix it. I’m going to look at it is as a journey. This is the beginning. I’m hoping that practicing it it will make it real.

I didn’t realize that my ex did a lot to compensate for all my self doubting. Do you realize how many compliments a day it takes to counter balance that?! Geesh! No wonder when I started doubting him that everything went to shit. That is too much for one person to take on… no matter how willing.

Me and my girlfriends were talking about dreams last night. One of my friends says she has a recurring theme of snow in the fall. My other friend has dreams she can’t move but there are dark figured men walking around her room… they are in different positions depending on the position of her body. Mine is a silly recurring dream I’ve had since I was 4. Flesh colored alligators with yarn for hair, not unlike a kid’s puppet… It was terrifying to my 4 year old self… and truth be told when I have the dream today it is as if i’m 4 all over again and just as terrified… the dream always ends with me desperately trying to scream for my parents but nothing comes out.

We had fun looking up the themes and guessing what they could mean… Snow having something to do with unspoken emotions… which is extremely fitting for my friend who can’t/won’t talk about feelings… she’s embarrassed that she actually has all the same girly instincts as the rest of us. It’s funny.

Alligators symbolize treachery, deceit, and hidden instincts… whatever that means. But it does also say that I might need to take a new perspective on something going on in my life…. Just what I need – over thinking and dissecting what situation I need a perspective change… Wonder how the meaning is effected when its an alligator that looks like an art project gone wrong?

It’s kind of fun… Think about a dream you’ve had multiple times.. or maybe just the last one you can think of… It’s the same kind of a fun a horoscope can be when you aren’t sold out to it. http://www.dreammoods.com/dreamdictionary/a.htm

Anyway, I went home on my lunch break to take a little siesta… I had a dream. Me and my ex were parking at Kroger. As we walked through the parking lot we held hands. As naturally as it was to hold hands, I felt like something was off. It wasn’t til after we walked through the automatic doors that I realized we weren’t together and yanked my hand back. “Wondered how long that would last.” My realization came in layers… Like I had to swim through the degrees of separation we went through to get to our divorce. Didn’t we separate? Are we working things out? Wait, I have my own place. Whoa! We’re divorced!

I’m not one to remember when I actually dream so I thought it an odd coincidence that I had this dream after we talked about it just last night. I’m not looking up what it means to dream of an ex.

I was enjoying a nice relaxing Sunday morning when a I received a text from a friend. Why people feel like I need ex updates I will never understand. As is necessary in the current age in which we live I defriended him on all social medias for the sole purpose of NOT being informed on his daily activities. Of course it had to do with another girl. Which, lets be honest, is more specifically why I defriended him! A tiny little blond was hugged up on him… “happy birthday!” “Thanks, LOVE YOU!” Shoot me now. The conversation with my well-intentioned, oblivious friend didn’t last long. Of course it didn’t end without one comment from her about dating the next hottest guy I meet and posting pics… oh good grief!

There are so many things wrong here. Where to begin…

1) Serious, why do you feel the need to update me?? Don’t you realize I’ve gone out of my way to not be updated! Way out of my way!

2) A new girl? Saying “I love you”? SHHHOOOOT MMMEEEE! He still texts me at midnight and asks me to come over. He still tells me he wants us to work. Ugh. DO NOT say those things and asks those things of me if there are other females in your life. Just… no!

3) When will, if ever, I not be effected by hearing about him (or seeing him) with other girls. I don’t want him. I’m done. But, damn, that hit hard. Did not like that at all!

4) She wants me to what? Date the next hottest guy… first of all, sure thing, hott guys willing to date me are a dime a dozen! Not. Second, is that really a game you think i’d play??? Oh no. My ex is an extremely amazing guy… I can’t compete with that. I will lose that competition in the first round! He will do anything for anyone. I wouldn’t. I’m way more selfish with my time and my opinions to be the person to completely put myself on the back burner for someone…. And I realize that sounds awesome on the surface, but it turns into him losing himself – and really the whole relationship won’t work if he continues to deny himself… It’s not real. It’s completely… impossible to perpetuate. So in the beginning yes… perfection to find a guy like that… but in the end you have to ask… “who are you?” He’ll be there without an answer. I’ll be me. 🙂 maybe i won’t lose. But it won’t be because of our next significant others.

I truly believed I’d never see my peppy self again. I thought that the bitterness and anger I went through changed me forever. I’ve been walking through life for the last year in a terribly sad state. That had become my default. But the last few weeks, for no reason at all, I’m smiling. Walking to my car smiling. Sitting at my desk content with life. There’s no guy, there’s no new fun life event going on… its just me. I’ve never been so okay with me. I mean, I can’t remember the last time I even had to try to be okay with just me….. sophomore year in high school. I’m not the kind of person that needs people around all the time, and I know that helps, but lonely has been a huge struggle for me since the separation. I mean, it makes sense…. not that I was more accepting of it because it is a normal feeling through a divorce…. but at least it made sense.

It just happened all of a sudden… and it’s been here for the last 2 weeks. It’s odd timing for me too… I just basically ended a friendship. And the previous week was full of tears over losing my house. And I just detached myself from any sort of potential love interests… I don’t know if the timing is coincidence, chemicals in my brain malfunctioning, or if any of those things mentioned above positively effected me, but I’m so glad.

I went out with my best friend last night and she could see it. I’m back! I can’t express how grateful I am. It’s been rough. And I am bracing myself for the next roller coaster of emotions to sweep in… Its been up and down for sure! So I fully expect the sad to make a come back. But its so good to know that this part of me is still here. I am still me. 🙂 A slightly more jaded, baggage laden, divorced me, but i still got my pep!

I know sadness and anger and bitterness aren’t easy things to deal with for anyone, but I kind of thought that for someone like me… the happy-by-default me… the annoyingly-peppy-girl-in-the-cube-next-door me… the trust-first me… the silver-lining me… the walking-on-the-bright-side-me… would have a harder time experiencing such contrasting emotions. I could be wrong. I’m just glad to see it wasn’t permanent. It was a real fear I had.

One of the worst things I felt with my husband, er… ex husband… was the feeling of being judged constantly. Now, I realize as a woman we make things up all the time. Our crazy female logic has us over thinking in so many different circles we can’t see clearly through the dizziness. But regardless of whether this was something I made up in my head or something that he actually did, I felt it. If i feel it, it is real to me. What else makes up our reality except our possessions and feelings? It’s really all we have.

I felt so judged I suppressed who I really was. I hid myself from him in fear he’d hate it. And judge it more harshly. I’ve had friends that made me feel this way too. I thought it was just something that came out of my own imagination… I excused it and tried, unsuccessfully, to ignore it. Hiding yourself does so many negative things to you… to you, your personality, your happiness, your sanity… It effects every part of our lives.

The thing about feeling judged is that you never feel good enough if you are feeling judged at all. Have you noticed that? It’s never a good thing. You are weighed and measured and found wanting… You are never found perfect. EVER. It’s a feeling that easily engulfs you with a bad taste for yourself.

Since I’ve been divorced I’ve met several new people… guys generally, that I don’t feel that way with. And I like it! It felt so tangibly different I was taken aback with surprise. I still can’t get over the difference. Now, none of these guys are “the one” but they made me realize that it is definitely something i’m not willing to settle or compromise on in the future. And that excites me!

This subject is becoming weird to me. First of all, me and my ex get along just fine. I mean, yes, I find him annoying most moments when I think about him and the latest and not-so-greatest things he has done, but we are more than amicable. I could sit down to a meal with him and actually enjoy myself.

That being said, can I, should I, be okay with my family hanging out with him too? I can’t stand the thought of my brothers taking a trip with him this summer to go watch a cardinals game in St. Louis together. And I hate the fact that my dad still talks about going and watching movies on “our” home theater with him and not thinking twice about my feelings. And the fact that my mom is taking him car shopping to help her pick out a good vehicle. If I can hang with him? Should I be okay with them doing it too? Would it be batshit crazy to not let them, when I see him a lot? (I work with him still, btw. So some of it isn’t a choice.) I don’t know. I don’t hang out with him much at all. I just can tolerate it. So is it acceptable for me to ask them to cut ties? I find that to be hard to do. I have never been one to dictate other’s relationships… (of course, that is what landed me in this divorced situation in the first place, but I digress.)

I’m just trying to navigate this family and ex situation. I find it extremely manipulative that he still wants to be around my family. But maybe it isn’t so malicious. I always did have a problem with judging motives too harshly… I’ll figure it out. It’s a weird balancing act, tho, of letting people decide who they want in life versus me being hurt by who they decide to keep in their lives…

And am I being too lenient? or is my tolerance just right? I just want to be fair aaand feel like my family is mine… not his. anymore… it’s just not so black and white i guess…